How The Independent Pharmacy Grew Links 33% YoY

The Independent Pharmacy is one of the UK’s leading online pharmacies, helping people treat everyday health conditions. From weight loss and menopause to skin infections, cold and flu – without needing to see a GP. Its goal is simple and ambitious: to be the UK’s most trusted online pharmacy.

Services DPR, SEO

Industry Ecom

Vision // Goals

The Independent Pharmacy operates in a market that is getting harder, not easier. Across its core health categories, search demand fell 14% year on year. At the same time, the way people find health information is changing fast.

AI Overviews now appear across almost every health-related search, and from mid-2025, they began diverting clicks away from organic results to the point where ranking in the top three positions no longer reliably translated into traffic. More people are also starting their research by asking an AI assistant rather than typing into a search box.

That shift raised the stakes. Success was no longer just about being visible in search results; it was about being understood and referenced by the AI systems shaping early decisions. Both rest on the same foundation: authority. The Independent Pharmacy needed to build that authority early, and build it faster than a shrinking market might suggest was possible.

The programme delivered on every front

We secured 172 pieces of coverage over the quarter, up 19% year on year, including 150 linked placements, a 33% YoY increase. In total, that drove 231 links and +33% YoY link growth, reaching a combined brand audience of 240M.

The quality matched the volume. Links landed at an average domain rating of 76, comfortably ahead of target, with coverage in titles including The Guardian, Daily Mirror, The Sun, Metro and HuffPost. Of the 231 links, 147 reinforced the homepage, 61 went to category pages, and 13 went to product pages, deliberately deepening authority where it converts.

That authority translated into visibility. SERP visibility rose 78% year on year, and visibility across The Independent Pharmacy’s core categories grew 5.4% even through Google’s March core update, which hit many intermediary sites hard. As coverage and authority compounded, demand followed: branded searches climbed 13% year on year, placing The Independent Pharmacy among the most searched-for online pharmacy brands in the UK.

In a market shedding 14% of its search demand, that’s the real headline coverage and links that built authority, and that authority fed genuine, branded demand.

The next phase is about turning authority into commercial advantage. We’re sharpening our focus on weight loss as a priority category, including Mounjaro and Wegovy, and working to secure more links to the top 25 priority products that drive high-intent traffic and conversions.

A series of hero campaigns is in development to deliver concentrated bursts of high-authority coverage, and we’re expanding into high-reach lifestyle and health titles with tailored angles, from women’s health to menopause. With visibility inside AI Overviews still an under-tapped opportunity, we’ll keep building the kind of trusted, well-referenced presence that gets The Independent Pharmacy surfaced wherever decisions are made, as we close in on that North Star of becoming the UK’s most trusted online pharmacy.